Residents of destroyed city of Mariupol: “There are dead bodies in the street, the whole city is actually dead” | War Ukraine and Russia

17-year-old student Yuliia Karpenko fled the city with her mother and stepfather after their flat was hit in a Russian air raid. “All the windows were shattered,” she told Reuters news agency. “We were afraid because our flat was badly damaged.”

The apartment next door was on fire. That was the sign to flee, away from the death and destruction and devastation of the ongoing Russian shelling and bombing, which has left the city deprived of electricity, heating and water.

Yuliia now resides in the western city of Lviv, . She was looking forward to getting her high school diploma this year. She then wanted to go to university, but wasn’t sure yet whether she wanted to study sociology or literature. Now her life is in ruins, as is the city she lived in. “All my plans have been destroyed,” she says in a telephone interview from a bomb shelter. “I hope to go to Germany now. I still want to study.”

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The occupation of Mariupol has been compared to the siege of the Russian city of Leningrad – today’s Saint Petersburg – by the Nazis during World War II. The satellite images speak for themselves. Much of the southern port city was destroyed by the Russians. Authorities say 80 percent of the city has been destroyed. The Russians have a stranglehold on Mariupol. Stocks are running out and evacuation via humanitarian corridors is difficult.

About 400,000 residents have been detained in Mariupol for more than two weeks. The Russians deny attacks on residential areas and civilian targets. The devastation in the city proves otherwise. This week, the theater in the city was bombed, while more than 1,000 Ukrainians, including children, were in an air raid shelter, the city government said. At least 130 people have survived, authorities say, but the fate of hundreds of others is still uncertain.

Authorities estimate that more than 2,500 residents have been killed since the Russian attack began. The dead are still lying in the street in several places, covered only by a blanket with their feet or hands sticking out.

“It’s terrible,” Karpenko says. “Houses are on fire, all shops are closed and hospitals have been bombed. There are not enough doctors. I saw a man who had been lying dead on a couch for four days. He was an alcoholic and had frozen to death. There was no one to help him.”

Yuliia’s grandparents, both in their late 70s, stayed behind in Mariupol. They don’t want to leave their home. She hasn’t heard from them since Wednesday. Telephone and internet traffic is closed. “Old people like her don’t want to run and take shelter,” Yuliia says. “Anything can happen to them.”

Also watch: Russian ambassador denies bombing Mariupol theater

The city council warns that food and water are running out. The region’s governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, says 35,000 people have been able to leave the city in recent days, either on foot or in a convoy of cars.

One of them is 17-year-old Rostyslov Nepomniashchyh, a friend of Yuliia. The journey past Russian checkpoints took ten hours. He would prefer to go to Poland or Germany. One day he wants to return to Ukraine, but doubts whether he will ever go to Mariupol again.

“It makes no sense for me to go back to Mariupol. I have no flat, no place to live. The city is basically dead.”